Who Is Mason Ramsey, the Yodeling ‘Walmart Boy’?

They call him "Little Hank" in his hometown, and 11-year-old "Walmart Boy" Mason Ramsey has earned the moniker. The newly-famous yodeling cowboy didn't just turn up out of nowhere!

Nope, there's video evidence that Ramsey has been entertaining audiences for as long as he could hold a guitar. One video from the summer of 2016 shows then-9-year-old Ramsey at the Kentucky Opry, telling crowds he starting playing at age six. He says he started hearing his grandfather play Hank Williams in the garage and just started to sing like the legend.

Fun fact: Ramsey was the 2016 winner of the Kentucky Opry Talent Search, Beginner Division. He's performed "Your Cheatin' Heart" and "Long Gone Lonesome Blues" in his career, but was made famous with a Walmart cover of "Lovesick Blues."

This isn't his first cover of the song. In January 2017 he shared a version to YouTube. We're pretty fond of his "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" from 2015:

Ramsey is from Harrisburg, Ill. and was filmed yodeling the Williams song on March 24, 2018. Radio station WVVR-FM in Clarksville, Tenn., shared the clip of him singing at a Walmart in Paducah, Ky., in January of last year. That video racked up more than a million views and led to a recreation of the moment on their Facebook page, with Ramsey singing "Jambalaya."

Here is a better version of that cover:

The newly-viral video of the Walmart Boy has more than 17 million views on Twitter and has been retweeted more than 50,000 times. Fans are kind of freaking out over the kid, and he might have Grandma and Grandpa to thank! Not only does his love of Hank Williams come from their old collection of records, but it's often his grandparents who drive him around to stores and radio stations.